September 2013 – The local meat industry in North Carolina is thriving. Meat handler registrations, required by the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services of all meat producers who sell their products to the public, have increased from 180 statewide in 2008, to 625 in 2012. The rise in registered meat producers can be attributed to explosive growth in the local, pasture-raised, and niche meat markets, both regionally and nationally.

NC Growing Together partner NC Choices has played a pivotal role in supporting the growth of this market. A CEFS initiative, NC Choices promotes the advancement of local, niche and pasture-based meat supply chains by facilitating educational and networking experiences for producers, processors, food professional and buyers; providing technical and business assistance to commercial meat processors; assisting supply chain participants in navigating the regulatory environment; and developing innovative partnerships to explore market opportunities and enhance consumer access to North Carolina grown pasture-based meat products.

NC Choices organizes the annual Carolina Meat Conference, the first of its kind in the country. Last year the sold-out conference brought over 380 producers, meat processors, food buyers and support businesses from all over the country to North Carolina for workshops, hands-on meat cutting instruction, panel and round-table discussions, presentations, networking opportunities, and more.

Last year’s conference was also the site of a serendipitous connection for Nicole and Bradley Mills of Mills Family Farm in Mooresville, NC. The couple, along with other family members, raise more than 340 head of cattle on land that has been in Bradley’s family since 1935. They started selling their meat commercially a few years ago, after receiving so many requests from friends and family that they realized the business potential at their fingertips. “We’ve followed market demand,” says Nicole, a former animal health sales representative, “and our business has quadrupled in the last three years”.

While attending a roundtable discussion of food service meat buyers at the meat conference, Nicole and Bradley listened as Carl Costenbader of US Foods described the kind of products that his company is looking to source from local producers. US Foods is an NC Growing Together partner and one of America’s leading foodservice distributors. Says Carl, “US Foods has realized the market potential for local and niche meats and we want to offer that to our customers.”

Nicole says that she felt like their farm would be a good match for US Foods, and they spoke with Carl after the session. “It was a good fit,” she says. Now they supply US Foods with several thousand pounds of meat weekly, custom cut and packaged according to the distributor’s specifications. Of the conference, Nicole says that it “opened up a whole new world for us, in terms of making more connections, and seeing what other people are doing”.

Explains NC Choices Director Casey McKissick, “The feedback from farmers, meat processors and buyers from the first conference

[in 2011] was so overwhelmingly positive. It was easy to see that educating, connecting and networking the local and niche meat value chain was one of the most important things we could do. The second annual conference was when we saw the big buyers get more interested, and this time farmers were ready to engage with them.”

The market for local and niche meats in North Carolina is not only growing, it’s diversifying as well. There is an increasing variety of locally-sourced meat products being sold through retail, food service, restaurant, and direct-to-consumer outlets such as farmers’ markets and CSA (consumer supported agriculture) programs.

One meat supply chain innovator that is helping to diversify the local meat market is NC Growing Together partner Firsthand Foods. A CEFS-incubated business, Firsthand Foods aggregates, distributes, and markets high-quality, pasture-raised beef and pork products from a network of nearly 40 local producers across the state. Their farmers employ intensive pasture management and high animal welfare without the use of growth-promoting antibiotics or added hormones.

Firsthand functions as a “food hub”, helping farmers from rural areas access larger-scale, metropolitan markets across the state. Firsthand emphasizes traceability from farm-to-fork, enabling its customers to know exactly where their meats come from and how they were raised. Says Firsthand Foods Co-CEO Jennifer Curtis, “we tackle a big challenge to the development of regional meat supply chains by figuring out markets for all parts of each animal we purchase, minimizing waste and optimizing profitability and returns to our producer network.”

Rogers Cattle Company, operated by Johnny and Sharon Rogers in Roxboro, NC, is part of Firsthand Foods’ producer network. The Rogers’ raise pasture-raised beef, pasture-raised pigs, free range chicken, free range turkey and grass-fed lamb that they sell directly off their farm, at area farmers’ markets, and to Firsthand Foods. Connecting with Firsthand Foods has helped their farm grow, says Johnny.  “Our relationship with Firsthand Foods has allowed us to develop marketing channels that we could not reach on our own. Operating a farm is like most small businesses in that you must devote a tremendous amount of time on production and marketing does not get the time it deserves. Firsthand Foods has allowed us to grow our business by finding customers who want our products.”